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Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Words on the Walls

One of the first things I wanted to do after I got my Cricut was to cut adhesive vinyl and put words and decorations on the walls in my house. I was inspired by a post on the Cricut message board that I saw shortly after I started using my machine. The post was of a very colorful craft room done by Alene, known as "lovemypoodle" on the message board and words can't explain how cute it is - you just have to go to this post to check it out! L@@K my craft room with CRICUT cuts!!

I started off on a much smaller scale and just wanted to put a Christmas phrase on the beam between our kitchen and family room for the holidays. I used Plantin Schoolbook at 3 inches and cut the letters out of dark red "Wall Pops". "Wall Pops" is a brand of adhesive back vinyl that come in about a dozen colors in either 13 inch squares, 13 inch circles or rolls that are 6 1/2 inches by 16 feet. They are sold at wallpaper stores, college bookstores and many, but not all, Lowes stores. At Lowes the regular price is $9.99 for a pack of five squares or five circles or a roll. You can find out more about them and the colors available and sales locations at the Wall Pops website

Here is a photo of the beam with the words

I cut sections of the vinyl that were 12 inches long and stuck it to the left side of the mat and then navigated to the corner using the arrows around the cut button and pushed "set paper size." I had my blade depth at 4, the pressure and speed dials at medium. It cut beautifully - cleanly cutting the vinyl but leaving the backing pretty much intact so I could just peel the letters off and place them one by one. The holly at the end was something I had already cut from paper using the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge and since I didn't have a "Christmas" shade of Wall Pops green I used tape to stick those up at the end.

I have not tried other brands of vinyl yet, including the new Cricut vinyl, but there are many other brands and nearly any color you want is available somewhere. You do want to be careful to make sure that the vinyl has repositionable adhesive that won't damage your walls.

After the holidays, I carefully took the letters down and stored them on some old office page protectors so that I can use them next year. They seem to stay very sticky so I hope they'll be usable for several years before I'll need to cut more.

I didn't have Design Studio yet so I just used the regular Cricut system and had it on "paper saver" - I have read that others have been able to squeeze lots of letters in for their words by using Design Studio to lay them out - just keep track of the letters as you place them so you have enough of everything! Below is the "waste piece" from my new saying for the beam...

It is important to smooth the material down to the mat very well and to make sure that all the air bubbles are out so that you will get good cuts with no shifting - some people have actually used sandpaper to rough up the backing sheet and make it stick down better.

For the next saying I used the Alphalicious cartridge - also at 3 inches. It was a bit more challenging to get such a long saying up in a way that I liked but you can keep repositioning things until you approve of the result! Here are a few photos of my beam right now - it will change when I feel the need for something new (or maybe for another holiday).

close ups

and the whole thing...

Check out the Cricut message board to see lots of other examples of funny and nice things that people are putting on their walls.

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